Average Metacritic score is 76 (23 reviews):

by Jay Reatard
Watch Me Fall (Matador)
Release Date: August 18
Metacritic Ranking: 87 (87 review)
Pitchfork: 7.9




http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2 ... -fall.html

Published at 9:00 AM on August 20, 2009
By Austin L. Ray
Paste Rating 87

Like an early-morning cup of coffee shaking awake its master, Jay Reatard's new album and Matador debut, Watch Me Fall, kicks off with a jolt. "It Ain't Gonna Save Me"—inarguably one of the best tracks to date from the Memphis punk rocker born Jay Lindsey—seethes melodic vitriol with its breathless guitars and lyrics about shitting clouds. It's the high point of Watch Me Fall, but the rest of the record hardly slouches. Tracks like "Man of Steel" and "Can't Do it Anymore" are filled with that special brand of two-to-three-minute Reatard hopelessness, but acoustic guitar, cello and generally expanded instrumentation are also peppered throughout. A lot has been made of Reatard's softening on this record, and indeed, this is no Blood Visions in terms of quote unquote punk rock. "Wounded" starts off with ba-da-ba-ba's that wouldn't sound out of place on a Shins record, and in "I'm Watching You," a higer-fidelity reprisal of his 2008 single, Reatard alters the lyrics slightly to turn the focus on himself. A kinder, gentler Jay Reatard? Perhaps, but probably not for long. "I can only go so clean before I’ll want to do something different," Reatard recently told Paste. "I know I won’t be making another record like Watch Me Fall again, this was a record I wanted to make and I needed to make, something I felt artistically driven to do. Now that I’ve made it, I’m on to the next idea."

I listened to this twice when it came out but have failed to really care about it since. I remember enjoying it enough.

it's good. i can see how people would hate it since it's more poppy than his earlier stuff.

It was OK when I listened to it, certainly nothing earth shattering, wasn't particularly memorable and I think he could do much better. Didn't rock hard enough to be a really impressive rock album but wasn't catchy enough to be much of a pop album. Sits in a middle ground somewhere as a decently competent record with no major glaring flaws but nothing particularly interesting about it either. I was kind of expecting to like this much more as I liekd some of his other stuff, particularly the singles collection and I read some really positive advance press so I gave this a couple listens and really wanted and expected to like it. It just never really did much for me.

Have not posted in a long, long time. So I'll jump right in on this topic since I saw him live less than a week ago. I actually like this record quite a bit, because I am a big fan of New Zealand bands like The Chills, Verlaines, Tall Dwarves etc... which he has obviously has been listening to alot. Live however these songs come off as if they were being given the Motorhead treatment, total punk/metal onslaught. Even when he played an acoustic, it was was unrecognizable as that. He came out said hello, ripped through about 25 songs with out so much as a pause, said good night and left the building.

Obviously an artiste.

What's the problem with that?

Played well, seemed like kind of a dick actually...If I did not know better I'd say there may have been some kind of substance involved.

one "a" too many